[HH1.0] Dark Angels Tactics

[rendingon1+]

@The Lord of Iron

Amen brother. What we have now is a low-grade bonus to cc based on equipment (useless when you need to reliably crack 2+), 2 swords available to characters only (not so good vs legion lists, mostly useless in challanges, not to mention that AP2 no I penalties weapons are getting much common), salvo 12"  weapon unavailable to relentless models (emailed FW - terminators cannot exchange plasma blasters for repeaters) and only usable things are acid shells and stasis blasts. Than again - how can you make a tactic based on acid shells only? "Shoot everyone with h.bolters?". Great.  

 

White Scars - this I consider full legion rules. Dark Angels? please. It doesn't look like they even tried. Especially when old legions got massive boost like EC +1I, crazy good Row with no penalties and sonic shriekers, SoH +1 BS boost etc.

[The Lord of Iron]

 

 

1. Only characters (sergeants, hq choices) can take blade of Caliban. Rank and file cannot. Would make sense but FW thinks otherwise.

2. Terranic - Only praetors and centurions/consuls.

 

If you feel dissapointed - welcome to the 1st legion.

Man I didn't realize that only characters could Calibabtine Warblades that sucks. Tack that on to the nearly none existent legion rules, bad relic, and general hit and miss war gear and I honestly cannot see the reason to play a dark angels army. You guys have it worse than we do in the fourth.

The blades are bleh but give us some options. The real greatness I feel you overlooked are acid shells - you're ignoring marine armor saves half of the time and TEQs on a third of the time, and wounding both on 2+s.

 

Not to mention stasis shells to drop special units and characters down -1 for WS and I to get in quicker kills. It's not (pardon my ubermensch) straightforward and brainless like WS glaives or cyberhawks, you need to play smarter, not harder.

 

Don't forget we get some sick RoWs too. Tank Hunter and Fear on dreads plus tank bonuses when the smart thing is to run Tacs in rhinos anyway?

 

I don't mean to sound mean, or come down hard on you but I feel that it's easy to flippantly put down the DAs on paper than trying them out. I did pretty dang good running them vanilla. This is icing on the cake.

 

 

I'm not trying to be flippant. Dark Angels are awesome one of my favorite legions behind only the iron warriors and alpha legion. Thing is their rules are kind of blah.

 

Their heavy bolters are awesome but as far as i have heard only available to infantry  with the LA dark angels rule. sadly i doubt that heavy support squads or veterans will be winning many shoot outs with heavy bolters.

 

Stasis shells are really cool but the thing is in the almost all marine environment that is the horus heresy almost everything will have equal Ws so they end up ereasing your one legion rule.

 

Your plasma repeaters are 5 points more than a plasma gun for what is essentially half the range, even if it is twin-linked. Sure support squads are with them sound cool but even a 5 man squad is going to cost you 200 points and at the end of the day they are just marines.

 

In addition for everything but veterans and terminators you have to pay to make use of your one legion rule.

 

And to top it off you risk losing an extra d3 victory points if you lose more units to the enemy. For a legion that really isn't much better at killing than the stranded template legion its a huge downside for essentially nothing in return.

 

sure the dark angels have some of the coolest veteran squads in the game but it doesn't make up for the fact that against other legions they fall a little flat.

 

oh and there a few legions that can side step the ws thing altogether not the least of which being The Emperor's Children, The Night Lords, and The World Eaters, 

Edited February 18, 2016 by The Lord of Iron

[1ncarnadine]

 

I'm not trying to be flippant. Dark Angels are awesome one of my favorite legions behind only the iron warriors and alpha legion. Thing is their rules are kind of blah.

 

Their heavy bolters are awesome but as far as i have heard only available to infantry  with the LA dark angels rule. sadly i doubt that heavy support squads or veterans will be winning many shoot outs with heavy bolters.

 

Stasis shells are really cool but the thing is in the almost all marine environment that is the horus heresy almost everything will have equal Ws so they end up ereasing your one legion rule.

 

Your plasma repeaters are 5 points more than a plasma gun for what is essentially half the range, even if it is twin-linked. Sure support squads are with them sound cool but even a 5 man squad is going to cost you 200 points and at the end of the day they are just marines.

 

In addition for everything but veterans and terminators you have to pay to make use of your one legion rule.

 

And to top it off you risk losing an extra d3 victory points if you lose more units to the enemy. For a legion that really isn't much better at killing than the stranded template legion its a huge downside for essentially nothing in return.

 

sure the dark angels have some of the coolest veteran squads in the game but it doesn't make up for the fact that against other legions they fall a little flat.

 

oh and there a few legions that can side step the ws thing altogether not the least of which being The Emperor's Children, The Night Lords, and The World Eaters, 

 

 

The molecular acid rounds are available to any model with Legiones Astartes (Dark Angels), so they make jetbikes pretty rad. Their Dreadnoughts can use it too, although that's significantly less useful. I guess you'll use them on a Deredeo?

 

And I feel like the main benefit of the stasis shells isn't the WS modifier either, it's the initiative modifier that lets your units hit first. That's quite nice.

 

Otherwise I mostly agree, the DA rules are overall pretty average so far. They'll probably make up for it with some very cool special units and characters, though (Corswain).

[The Lord of Iron]

I'M really hoping that they will get a few future adjustments to their legion rules. I had hoped that they would play more like the hyper disciplined force they are depicted as. Instead forge world seems to have gone with the whole knights/monster hunters thing, which is cool but could still stand to be expanded on.

 

the - 1 to initiative is good, and their legion rows are both cool (wish the iron warriors got that tank one). Still I'm more than a little skeptical.

[Ishagu]

I expect DA to have some of the most interesting characters who might supplement the army's rules in various ways.

[hivey]

So ironwing looks cool, but it seems like making an army will be difficult. Only 3 units of tanks from heavy support and one from hq (the hq rhino), means you can only have 4 units that arent infantry in rhinos or land raiders.

[rendingon1+]

Dedicated transports do not count?

[Erren]

So ironwing looks cool, but it seems like making an army will be difficult. Only 3 units of tanks from heavy support and one from hq (the hq rhino), means you can only have 4 units that arent infantry in rhinos or land raiders.

Yeah, it definitely tries to keep the whole force fairly one-dimensional (tanks! tanks everywhere!), especially since one of the 4 has to be your HQ. And another of the 4 units should probably be some sort of dreadnought so you take advantage of the rite's special rules. Yet another of the 4 possible non-tank units if you want to give it a drop pod. Then a fourth pick for your LoW (super-heavy vehicles don't have the Tank type in lacal).

 

I think the rite would be more appealing with access to a special legion assault infantry type that I'd put in a Spartan or Phobos. I was hoping we'd get access to storm shields like salamanders and imperial fists, but alas.

[Spinsanity]

Yeah, it definitely tries to keep the whole force fairly one-dimensional (tanks! tanks everywhere!), especially since one of the 4 has to be your HQ. And another of the 4 units should probably be some sort of dreadnought so you take advantage of the rite's special rules. Yet another of the 4 possible non-tank units if you want to give it a drop pod. Then a fourth pick for your LoW (super-heavy vehicles don't have the Tank type in lacal).

 

I think the rite would be more appealing with access to a special legion assault infantry type that I'd put in a Spartan or Phobos. I was hoping we'd get access to storm shields like salamanders and imperial fists, but alas.

So, how would one go about tallying Tank and Non-tank units? If I take a talon of three predators/vindicators/whirlwinds, does that count as 1 or 3? Would a dread talon similarly count as 1, or 3?

[Slips]

A Squadron of 3 Tanks, such as predators, is a Single Unit.

 

So you can have 9 predators in an Ironwing List since they're only 3 units of 3 tanks.

 

A Dread Talon only counts as a Squadron during the Deployment of the unit after which they are independent. Soooooo a 3 Dread talon would be 3 Vehicle, sadly.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Slipstreams

[rendingon1+]

 

So ironwing looks cool, but it seems like making an army will be difficult. Only 3 units of tanks from heavy support and one from hq (the hq rhino), means you can only have 4 units that arent infantry in rhinos or land raiders.

Yeah, it definitely tries to keep the whole force fairly one-dimensional (tanks! tanks everywhere!), especially since one of the 4 has to be your HQ. And another of the 4 units should probably be some sort of dreadnought so you take advantage of the rite's special rules. Yet another of the 4 possible non-tank units if you want to give it a drop pod. Then a fourth pick for your LoW (super-heavy vehicles don't have the Tank type in lacal).

 

I think the rite would be more appealing with access to a special legion assault infantry type that I'd put in a Spartan or Phobos. I was hoping we'd get access to storm shields like salamanders and imperial fists, but alas.

 

I think you're mixing Armoured Breakthrough and Ironwing RoW rules.

Ok, why dedicated transports do not count?

Edited February 18, 2016 by rendingon1+

[Erren]

Dedicated Transports do count. But you have to have at least half your units in your army be Tanks. So each dedicated transport just balances out the infantry unit that it's carrying. Ironwing is like a more powerful, more restrictive Armoured Breakthrough.

[The Lord of Iron]

Dedicated Transports do count. But you have to have at least half your units in your army be Tanks. So each dedicated transport just balances out the infantry unit that it's carrying. Ironwing is like a more powerful, more restrictive Armoured Breakthrough.

 

Except you get rhinos instead of land raiders. 

 

you poor dark angels players need some love. 

[rendingon1+]

Ok, thanks. So bare minimum for Ironwing is:

1.2tacs + rhinos/ 2breachers + LR

2.Praetor/delegatus+ command squad+ rhino/land raider

3.any HS tank choice

?

[Hesh Kadesh]

Ironwing Downsides;

 

 

- Infantry units must begin game in transporting vehicle with the tank type that has capacity to carry them.

- At least half the units in the army must be vehicles with the Tank type.

- Should all the tanks in the force be destroyed in battle, then the enemy counts as having scored an additional Secondary Objective

- You may not take a Fortification Detachment or Allied Detachment.

 

So

 

Delegatus/Praetor, or if Primarch is present, Centurion. x1 Tank needed, x2 if Primarch and Centurion. Centurion or Praetor can take a Bike to avoid the Transport Deployment clause, but still counts as a unit

 

Tactical Squad x1

Tactical Squad x1

 

Can take a Rhino each to meet the unit qualifying cause. (x2)

 

This means that you need another tank; of which available is -

 

Heavy Support

Lord of War

 

Rhino's still count towards to the total number of units. So that is 5 units, of which 2 are Transports.

 

So, from the available units, you need another tank unit. Predator Tank means you are 6 units total, 3 of which are tanks.

 

That leaves us with 3 remaining slots (2 with a Primarch, but with a Primarch needing another troop type, this means you only have 1 remaining tank slot.

 

Assuming we don't have a Primarch (because we don't, yet), that means we have a total of 6 total tanks.

 

With 6 Tank units, we can have a total of 12 more units, 6 of which aren't tank. 

 

HQ, 2x Troops = 3. 3 Assuming you want a Dreadnought Talon, because you get benefits for it, that's 1 unit only, for 3 vehicles. But you can take 3 more. Alternatively, a Rapier Battery is 1 unit per. 

 

So, 

 

HQ x1

 

Dread Talon x1

Dread Talon x1

Dread Talon x1

 

Tactical, Rhino x1 (x1 Tank)

Tactical, Rhino x1 (x1 Tank)

 

Predator (x1)

Predator (x1)

Predator (x1)

 

Typhon (x1)

 

If you want any additional units outside of that, they have to be infantry units in dedicated transports. I.e Command Squad in a Tank (Land Raider) x1 (x1), Veteran Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Destroyer Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Terminator Squad in Land Raider x1 (x1), Techmarine in Rhino x1 (x1), aforementioned Tactical Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Breacher Squad in Land Raider x1 (x1), Tactical Support Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Recon Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Seeker Squad in Rhino x1 (x1), Heavy Support Squad in Rhino x1 (x1).

 

It's a badly designed mechanic. Essentially, as ever, they've forgotten to include that HQ are not only units too, but that a Dedicated Transport adds to the total number of units too.

[Spinsanity]

Couldn't you add a pair of Damocles as HQs to add extra tanks? (Or is it a max of 1? I can't remember)

[Hesh Kadesh]

Max of 1, but I forgot that, so that helps. 

[Erren]

Where are you getting tanks from the LoW slot? in LACAL the super-heavies don't have the "tank" subtype for their unit type. Is your local meta just allowing them because it has the word "tank" in the unit name?

[Charlo]

I really want to like the DA... Ravenwing especially is quite appealing, using a lot of jetbikes and some plasma repeaters in pods.

 

Plasma repeaters just feel plain broken though, you are NEVER going to get the 3 shots at 12, unless you are in a very defensive position.... And even then.

[Slips]

Take a Libby

 

Fish for Endurance

 

Cast it

 

Benefit from Relentless

 

????

 

Profit?

 

I dunno, that'd be the simplest way of getting them en-masse and having them be useful from the get-go.

[Charlo]

That or some shattered Legion shenanigans with Crysos Mortug...

 

Either way though, only a 6" kill range is so limiting, even with a dreadclaw.

 

Hopefully they get a badass terminators unit with them en-masse

[rendingon1+]

That or some shattered Legion shenanigans with Crysos Mortug...

 

Either way though, only a 6" kill range is so limiting, even with a dreadclaw.

 

Hopefully they get a badass terminators unit with them en-masse

I emailed FW about that and their answer was that only plasma gun can be exchanged for repeaters.

 

Couldn't you add a pair of Damocles as HQs to add extra tanks? (Or is it a max of 1? I can't remember)

What for? If dedicated transports counts and you have 1:1 infantry-tanks ratio you just need one more tank to make it legal. You have 3 HS choices to do that. Unless I missed something again.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Where are you getting tanks from the LoW slot? in LACAL the super-heavies don't have the "tank" subtype for their unit type. Is your local meta just allowing them because it has the word "tank" in the unit name?

I can't be arsed searching any further, but one of my favourite units to play is the Praetor Armoured Assault Launcher, on page 130 of Imperial Armour Vol 1 Imperial Guard, 2nd Edition.

 

I only really checked this page, as I had it open at the time. Unit Type; Super-heavy vehicle (Tank).

[Hesh Kadesh]

I really want to like the DA... Ravenwing especially is quite appealing, using a lot of jetbikes and some plasma repeaters in pods.

 

Plasma repeaters just feel plain broken though, you are NEVER going to get the 3 shots at 12, unless you are in a very defensive position.... And even then.

Outriders. Twin-linked Plasma Repeaters, Scout, and a 12" base move. Throw on Rad Nades.

 

Combine with Search and Destroy (basically, have your 2+ Save T5 Scoring models ignore a phase of enemy shooting, and then gain outflank, before doing the same again. Basically playing hidey games. Throw on Pseudo stubborn, and you've got Rad Nade Podded Terminators forcing -1 WS, T and I for 304pts. Obviously, you can then take extra upgrades. But other than that? Yeah. Throw a ton of Axe Wielding Pseudo-Death Guard backed up by a ton of Acid Spewing Time Bubble Dropping Plasma Vomiting squads.

[Erren]

 

Where are you getting tanks from the LoW slot? in LACAL the super-heavies don't have the "tank" subtype for their unit type. Is your local meta just allowing them because it has the word "tank" in the unit name?

I can't be arsed searching any further, but one of my favourite units to play is the Praetor Armoured Assault Launcher, on page 130 of Imperial Armour Vol 1 Imperial Guard, 2nd Edition.

 

I only really checked this page, as I had it open at the time. Unit Type; Super-heavy vehicle (Tank).

 

 

Hrm, according to the LVO document on most up-to-date sources for FW units, the Praetor Armoured Assault Launcher rules should be coming out of IA: Apocalypse, where it doesn't have the tank sub-type.

 

Again, I'd hope that this wasn't intentional by the designers, but I'm not certain on that. And it's not like we can expect an FAQ to clarify it. It would really open up more opportunities to take Dreads though...